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The latest restaurant to open in Upper Lawrenceville is Cure, a project of Chef Justin Severino. Severino, an accomplished chef who has worked in kitchens throughout California, is best known in Pittsburgh as the former Executive Chef of Elements Cuisine in Downtown.

Cure is an intimate, neighborhood restaurant with a small menu, offering what it describes as "local urban Mediterranean" cuisine.

While living in Santa Cruz, California, Severino opened a small charcuterie shop called Severino’s Community Butcher, where he produced traditional cuts of pork using locally-sourced whole hogs.

Severino brings much of that previous experience to Cure, and he remains committed to ethical farming practices and humane animal husbandry. In addition to regular dinner service, Severino even plans to host hog butchering classes, as well as traditional wine tasting events.

The menu features plates such as sunchoke soup, with venison chorizo, kale, goat cheese, and crispy shallots; a cassoulet with boudin blanc, duck, smoked chicken, and pork belly; and beef cheeks with apple cider, gnocchi, mushrooms, and a celery root puree.

And on the same block, Wild Purveyors plans to open their storefront location at 5308 Butler Street in March.

Brothers Cavan and Tom Patterson are best known among chefs, as wholesalers of foraged food and fresh, local produce. But when the new shop opens, those small-production items and elusive wild goods will now be available to the general public.

The new shop will offer local, organic produce, cheese from 20 different Pennsylvania creameries, a wide range of local meats, and, of course, seasonal wild edibles, including morel, chanterelle, and black trumpet mushrooms, wild watercress, elderberries, raspberries, ramps, and pawpaws.

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With beautification projects, a possible reversal of a centuries-old liquor ban, and new life for the historic Wilkinsburg Train Station in its sights, this East End borough is primed for investment and development.